Thursday, July 12, 2007

Pre market

------------------------------------------------------Crude oil rose to more than $73 a barrel in New York after the U.S. government reported supplies of oil dropped because of a decline in imports.

Crude-oil stockpiles dropped 1.5 million barrels to 352.6 million barrels last week, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Imports fell 7 percent to an average 10 million barrels a day, the lowest since the week ended April 13. BloombergI think oil prices are close to peaking for the year. Lately, a lot of 'dumb' money has gone long oil.

As they did in the prior three months, June same-store-sales comparisons will be impacted somewhat by calendar shifts that are moving holidays into different monthly reporting periods compared with 2006. WSJAs I suspected retail sales are slowing.

-----------------------------------------------------Rio Tinto has sparked a bidding battle for Alcan by tabling a $38.1 billion (£18.9 billion) offer for the Canadian aluminium producer, $10 billion more than the bid made by Alcoa.

The Anglo-Australian mining giant said that the $101 per share all-cash bid, the largest ever made in the industry, had been unanimously recommended by Alcan’s board.

The acquisition will fuel a fourfold increase in Rio’s alumininum output and see it overtake Alcoa and Russia's Rusal as the world’s biggest producer of the metal at a time aluminium prices are soaring on the back of demand from Russia and China and with Indian demand set to take off. Times online